1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic camera that records electronic image data obtained by capturing an image of a subject.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are electronic cameras in the known art which comprise an image-capturing device such as a CCD that captures an image of a subject having passed through a photographic lens and outputs image data and an image processing circuit that implements image processing such as white balance adjustment and γ correction by adjusting the amplification gain for the image data output from the image-capturing device. In the image processing circuit, the image processing is performed by calculating parameters such as the R gain and the B gain for the white balance adjustment or the gradation curve for the γ correction through preset algorithms based upon the image data output from the image-capturing device.
In such an electronic camera in the prior art, a white balance adjustment coefficient is calculated so as to set the average value of the color information corresponding to the main subject, the background and the like, the image of which has been captured, to a value representing an achromatic color such as white or gray and the white balance adjustment is implemented on the image data by using this adjustment coefficient. When a person is photographed in a close-up as in portrait photographing with this camera, it is often impossible to achieve an achromatic color by averaging the color information if the background contains a great deal of highly saturated colors such as flowers or greenery. This poses a concern that an adjustment failure may occur with regard to the white balance adjustment coefficient to change the color tone of the photographed image.